If you're looking for a soft sourdough oatmeal cookie, these are chewy and perfect. This recipe is made for the dough to be baked right away, and they're packed with chocolate chips.
This is one of my top two discard dessert recipes, right after Sourdough Discard Brownies, which are easy to make and freeze just like these discard cookies!
This is a super delicious sourdough discard cookie recipe, I love using discard instead of wasting it or throwing it away.
I like to make Banana Sourdough Muffins or Sourdough Discard Banana Bread frequently, and this recipe is super easy to make ahead and freeze, just like my other recipes!
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⭐️ What To Expect
- Taste: These cookies are nice and soft, with a little crunch around the edges from the oats and chewy on the inside.
- Ease: This is a beginner recipe, it does require an electric or stand mixer to cream together the butter and sugar.
- Time: It only takes about 10 minutes to mix up the cookie dough, and 10 minutes per batch to bake
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The best cookies ever! I have to fight my kids off of them so they aren't all eaten in one sitting! Thank you for sharing the goodness!!
-Tara
🛒 Key Ingredients
- Unfed Sourdough Discard - I made this recipe with cold unfed sourdough starter from my fridge, but active fed room temperature starter can also be used!
- Butter - I always used salted butter for my cookie recipes, it tastes amazing. Make sure to soften it at room temp or in the microwave.
- Regular Old Fashioned Oats - used for their texture and so they don't absorb too much liquid too fast (just like in my coconut oatmeal cookies) and make the dough stiff like instant oats can do.
- Baking Soda - Helps the cookies spread (a must with oatmeal cookies!) and have just little puff.
- Salt - always makes cookies taste better and enhances the flavor.
- Eggs - used as a binder and also to make the cookies soft and chewy!
✏️ Substitutions & Variations
- Chocolate Chips - You can use white chocolate, butterscotch, cinnamon chips, peanut butter chips, raisins, cranberries etc.
- Nuts! We love to add 1 cup of chopped walnuts or pecans, but you could also add peanuts, macadamia nuts, etc to your cookie dough.
- Cinnamon - add 1 teaspoon cinnamon to the batter with the eggs and vanilla, and 1.5 cups of raisins and you can make a cinnamon raisin sourdough cookie!
🧑🍳 Instructions
Sourdough oatmeal chocolate chip cookies whip up pretty quickly, so make sure you have the oven preheated to 350℉.
TOP TIP: Weighing your ingredients will give you the best results, if you have a kitchen scale, make sure to use it!
Step 1. In a mixing bowl, use an electric mixer (or a stand mixer with a paddle attachment) to beat softened butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until creamy and white, about 3 minutes on medium/high speed.
Step 2. Add vanilla and eggs to the mixing bowl and mix well, for another 1-2 minutes.
Step 3. Add in the sourdough discard (make sure to weigh it, especially if it is active!), salt, and baking soda, and mix until combined. Sourdough discard should be on the thinner side, not very thick. Thicker discard makes stiffer cookie dough that won't spread. Add a Tablespoon or two of water if needed!
Step 4. Add the flour and mix on low speed until just combined.
Step 5. Add in oats and chocolate chips last, mixing on low/medium speed until they are fully mixed in.
Step 6. Scoop the dough into balls onto a prepared baking sheet (12 or 13 per pan) about 1.5 inches apart. I use a 1.5 Tablespoon cookie scoop.
Bake for 10-11 minutes until puffy and flattened. Remove and cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.
📌 Top Tips & Hacks
- Weigh your ingredients! This will help you make them correctly every time.
- Make sure you don't overbake the cookies! They are best soft, which means they will look slightly underbaked when you remove them from the oven. Overbaking them will make them crunchier and more dry.
- Use silicon baking mats to help bake the cookies evenly and with quick cleanup!
- When scooping onto the baking sheet, do rows of 3 and 2 so that 13 fit on the pan instead of 12.
❓Frequently Asked Questions
You can add a Tablespoon or two of water if the dough is stiff.
- Stiff dough can be caused by discard with different varieties of flour in it that absorb a lot of moisture, or from too much flour or oats.
- Make sure to measure ingredients by weight to get consistent results.
For this recipe, you can use either unfed cold discard from the refrigerator or room temperature active fed starter. Either works! Just make sure you weigh it, as active starter has more bubbles and takes a little more to get the correct volume.
Regular old-fashioned oats are best, quick oats absorb too much liquid and can make the dough stiff.
Yes!
1. Make recipe for dough as directed.
2. Scoop onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper close together but so edges are not touching.
3. Freeze 4 hours or overnight, then place into a freezer safe bag to use later.
To bake thawed: Place cookie dough balls in refrigerator overnight and then onto prepared cookie sheet. Preheat the oven to 350 F and bake as directed in recipe.
To bake while frozen: Preheat oven to 350 F. Place frozen cookie dough balls onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or baking mat. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until edges are barely golden brown and the tops are beginning to crack. After 12 minutes check every minute until done.
You can refrigerate the dough for up to 2 days in the refrigerator, but I would bring the dough to room temperature before scooping and baking so the cookies flatten as they bake.
Store at room temperature for up to 4 days, or freeze the baked cookies (once cooled) for up to 3 months in a freezer safe container.
🍪 More Delicious Cookie Recipes
Did You Try This Recipe? ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Make sure to leave a star rating and a comment below the recipe card. I love hearing from you, and it is so helpful to other readers! Better yet, share it with family and friends. Thank you!!
📝 Printable Recipe
Sourdough Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup salted butter, softened 226g
- ¾ cup brown sugar 172g
- ¾ cup white granulated sugar 185g
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- ½ cup unfed or active discard 130g
- 1½ teaspoons salt 10g
- 1½ teaspoons baking soda 7g
- 2¾ - 3 cups all purpose flour 375-400 g
- 2 cups old fashioned oats 200g
- 1½ cups chocolate chips
Instructions
- In a mixing bowl, use an electric mixer (or stand mixer with paddle attachment) to beat softened butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until creamy and white, about 3 minutes on medium/high speed.
- Add vanilla and egg to the mixing bowl and mix well, for another 1-2 minutes.
- Add in the sourdough discard, salt, and baking soda and mix until just combined.Sourdough discard consistency should be on the thinner side like pancake batter, not very thick. Thicker discard makes stiffer cookie dough that won't spread. Add a Tablespoon or two of water if needed!
- Add the flour (start with 2.5 cups and add more if needed) and mix on low speed until just combined.
- Add in oats and chocolate chips last, mixing on low/medium speed until they are fully mixed in.
- Scoop the dough into balls onto a prepared baking sheet (12 or 13 per pan) about 1.5 inches apart. I use a 1.5 Tablespoon cookie scoop.
- Bake for 10-11 minutes until puffy and flattened. Cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.
Notes
2. Scoop onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper close together but so edges are not touching.
3. Freeze 4 hours or overnight, then place into a freezer safe bag to use later.
To bake thawed: Place cookie dough balls in refrigerator overnight and then onto prepared cookie sheet. Preheat the oven to 350 F and bake as directed in recipe.
To bake while frozen: Preheat oven to 350 F. Place frozen cookie dough balls onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or baking mat. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until edges are barely golden brown and the tops are beginning to crack. After 12 minutes check every minute until done.
Tiffany G says
The best cookies ever! I have to fight my kids off of them so they aren’t all eaten in one sitting! Thank you for sharing the goodness!!
Anita L says
These are absolutely the best cookies I have ever made! I love that they are on the chewy side. I do not like crunchy cookies. So good!
Sara says
I'm so glad you love them as much as I do! I love oatmeal over almost any other cookie. Thanks for coming back to tell me, it always makes my day!
Sean says
My cookies completely flattened out even after I put the dough in my refrigerator for 30 minutes. Any idea what could cause that ? This was disappointing.
Sara says
It could be not enough flour or maybe thin starter. I feed my starter at a 1:1 flour to liquid ratio so it's like a thicker pancake batter. If it's a thin really liquid starter that could make the cookies flatten out quite a bit.
Jody says
I made these cookies yesterday. They turned out so good! My discard is on the thicker side, so the tip about adding water until a thinner consistency is obtained is a great tip. I will definitely make again.
Sara says
I'm so glad! They're one of my favorites to make with discard.
Shirley Wrght says
Not totally impressed, too dry off a mix,so that is more work out on the baking sheet…
They also do not spread
Will not make again
Sara says
These are on the chewy side, and they're definitely best when eaten within a day or two, but we've frozen the cookie dough and they're super easy to bake from frozen. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do! Please leave a comment here and share your feedback with a star rating. I really enjoyed creating this recipe and post for you!